Top Five Talks I’m Looking Forward To at Girl Geek X Elevate 2023
Girl Geek X Elevate Conference and Career Fair is a two day virtual conference held each year in honor of International Women’s Day. 2023 marks its sixth year and I’m really looking forward to learning from the amazing line up of speakers (oh and shameless plug, I’m speaking too on March 9 😊)
This year, like the past Girl Geek X Elevate Conference, it’s going to be hard to choose the top talks because there are so many cool and topical sessions. So, here we go…
Data Storytelling — Why This ONE SKILL Will Set You Apart presented by Katie Egeland, Sony Interactive Entertainment. As a product manager, story telling is a huge skill for my discipline and I’m always looking forward to learning from subject matter experts in this practice. Here, Katie is going to share how storytelling with data will uncover problems, suggest solutions, and drive decisions
Designing AI for Designers presented by Dr Tonya Custis, Autodesk. Dr. Custis is Director of AI Research and I’m really curious to learn about how her team’s research papers focus on making designers’ jobs easier by using AI to reverse-engineer objects and assemblies into sketches and CAD models, as well as to generate the designs themselves. I’m also super intrigued by how she learned about management strategy as a past roller derby skater. 😎
Neurodiversity @ Work presented by Jessica Sahagian, Connect RN. As someone who is ADHD, this talk is near and dear to me. When we talk about building diverse, inclusive teams, we don’t always talk about neurodiversity. In her talk, she will be sharing her tips on how to attract and hire neurodiverse candidates, talking about why women’s neurodiversity gets overlooked — and how to create an atmosphere conductive to amplifying these voices
Increasing Your Odds of Career Success with a Career ‘Brag Sheet’ presented by Erica Pisani, Netlify. The creation of a “Brag Sheet” is both a genius move and something all of us should have. I know in my past, Autodesk CTO Raji Arasu asked me to create a one page professional pitch. I really liked that exercise and reading through Erica’s abstract made me think about this past exercise and that I should be maintaining the professional pitch or this brag sheet. I’m excited to learn about what makes up a brag sheet and how it can really help in my career discussions with my leaders.
Why Accessibility Is Important to Understand — and a Good Career Choice by Sheri Byrne-Haber, VMWare. Building products that employ accessibility best practices means being inclusive. This talk speaks to my heart 😍 In this presentation, Sheri will talk about what accessibility is, how it fits in the overall software development life cycle, and how to prepare for a successful career in accessibility.
I hope you consider attending this awesome event on March 8–9 (it will be my third one and second time speaking). It’s free to register and totally virtual — https://girlgeek.io/conferences/elevate2023/ Please pass on to others who may be interested. Hope to see you there!
Check out all the open roles (including ones from Autodesk) here: https://girlgeek.io/jobs/
